Love, Summer

11: mia

A/N: Mia's POV

I know I'm a bad person.

There's really no excuse, but I'd like to think the trauma from growing up is a result of the way I am now.

I caught my dad cheating when I was four years old and didn't even know what the word cheating meant.

I just saw him with someone who wasn't my mom doing things a four-year-old probably shouldn't see.

And he said to me, "this is just what men do."

He smiled in my face, with his bright blue eyes, and I did what a four year old would do- smile back.

I had no idea what this man meant. Now looking back at it, his response was sick. How do you even say that to your daughter?

So I didn't say anything to my mom, because I didn't even know what I saw.

By the time I was 10 I realized what he was doing wasn't right.

Being almost a tween gave me the insight into other people's lives, and I realized some of my friends also had parents like that.

So suddenly my dad wasn't some smart man to look up to. He was a cheater.

I had confronted him.

"Why do you cheat on mom?" I asked him. She was away on a work trip, and I had caught him ushering his girlfriend out of the door.

With some choice words he screamed in my face until he stopped. He looked me in the eyes, and just walked away.

He had threatened me when he realized that I had no longer been oblivious. Trying to gift me cars and purses but all I wanted was a good family.

Mom found out one day when she came home from spin class.

I was sitting in the living room reading when she went upstairs and screamed.

Dad and that girl he'd been with for six years had been caught in their bedroom.

The girlfriend ran out of the house, her Jimmy Choo's in her hand as she fled out of the door.

I remember mom eventually came downstairs and looked at me.

Her blonde hair was disheveled and she no longer looked like the put together Pilates mom she was.

The look on her face was devastating, I've never seen her with such an expression on her face.

She's usually an overall person, but she looked the farthest thing from that as she stared into my eyes with her ghostly ones.

"did you know about this?" She asked me with tears in her eyes.

I was still a tiny bit confused, I thought all men did this. Dad told me it was a common thing that happened so I just thought in my brain that it did.

I told mom I knew about it and I had since I was four.

She slapped me in the face. I still remember the ringing in my ears until my eyes bulged out as I looked at her in shock after.

The tears had come back into her eyes. She pulled her hair up into a ponytail and grabbed her phone from where she slammed it on the table.

Mom ended up leaving but she didn't take me with her.

She left me with dad because she had said we both cheated her.

Since I hadn't told mom she believed it was a betrayal.

How would I have known that four years old that I was betraying my mom?

The problems only grew from there. Dad got married to the lady, whose name is Marie.

She's my stepmother now, and she's so awful. How stereotypical right?

I mean the cheating dad and the awful stepmom sounds like it's straight from a movie.

I don't remember the last time I spoke to someone in my house.

It's not even a house anymore. More of a place I just sleep in. I don't like to spend my time there and I sure as hell don't speak to anybody.

I sit silently and stare at the white walls because there's nothing better to do.

At school, I'm the captain of the cheer team. All the girls look up to me and want to be me.

I was the same when our captain was Hanna. She was so cool and of course she had a college boyfriend that we were all jealous of.

But when I grew up to be the cheer captain I realized it wasn't all that special.

Hannah had gotten pregnant by the end of senior year. She now works in a diner after leaving her abusive ex, the boyfriend.

Life isn't all rainbows and smiley faces. That's why you've got to fend for yourself because no one else is going to do it for you.

Protecting myself has become a big part of my every day life. Like a stereotypical mean girl I'm a bitch.

I need to get what I want in order to have the life that I deserve.